The boys at King’s Chapel have bought a football. We are expecting to have some fun Christmas.The boys here had a football game one day last week. Messrs. Eugene Mathis, Caulie and Mansfield Smith on one side and Messrs. Perry Swindle, Johnnie Mathis, Frank Shaw and Lonnie Smith on the other side. The former side beat.

Boys at Kings Chapel School play football. Valdosta Times, December 23, 1905

The Ray’s Mill school, after a very successful term, closed on Friday June 2. The patrons feel that the school has been a success and give Prof. and Mrs. Patten the praise of being very good teachers. The school would have closed sooner, but had to vacate a week on account of measles.Prof. J. L. Courson of Hahira will teach a ten day’s old-time singing school at Ray’s Mill beginning on the First Monday in June, after which he will teach a music school. We hope to have a large attendance.Rev. R. P. Fain is holding a tent meeting here now. He began Saturday, holding his first service Saturday evening. Miss McCord, who is just from the Kansas City training school, lectured Sunday afternoon. They had three services on Sunday but only two in the week, at four o’clock in the afternoon and 7:30 in the evening.There was quite a crowd out Sunday afternoon to hear Miss McCord’s lecture. She is a noble Christian worker.Little John Arthur Yarborough happened to a painful accident last week on his way to school. He cut his foot on a piece of broken bottle on the railroad. He went on to the school but when he reached the school house he came near fainting. He teacher sent for the doctor and he was taken home at once. He can’t walk yet, but we hope he will soon be able to go back to school.The Luckie Lumber Co. have started up their planing mill here.Misses Ada and Eula Starling gave an entertainment one night last week in honor of the cousin, Miss Pearl Hardie. Miss Hardie returned to her home in Hahira Monday.Miss Pearl Barfield is visiting her sister, Mrs. Norman Starling, for a while.Mr. Lester Starling and Mr. Gordon Hardie spent Sunday in Bemis.Miss Neta Bradford, of Valdosta, with a number of Cat Creek people, was out at church Sunday evening.Miss Mary Simmons, of the King’s Chapel district, visited her sister, Mrs. R. R. Moore Sunday.Mrs. Hardie, of Hahira, is visiting the family of Mr. W. H. E. Terry this week.We regret very much to say that Mrs. W. H. E. Terry of Ray’s Mill is very sick. She has been sick a little over a week and she is very low, but we trust she will recover.

Notes:

Neta Bradford was a student at Kings Chapel School in 1905 and attended Norman Institute in 1906

In 1906 two young men, William Franklin “Frank” Shaw and Ben Giddens, wandered into the South Georgia swamp. When it got late and the skies turned stormy the Shaw family, many of whom lived and worked in the Ray City vicinity, mobilized to search for the boys. (Bryan Shaw, of the Berrien Historical Foundation, has written about his family history in the newsletter, Family of Francis Marion Shaw.)

The Valdosta TimesJune 23, 1906

BOYS LOST IN THE SWAMP.

Cat Creek Lads Go Hunting and Failed to Return.

Frank Shaw and Ben Giddens Followed a Rabbit Into a Swamp and Were Unable to Find Their Way Out

Cat Creek, Ga., June 20 – Last Tuesday afternoon Frank Shaw, aged 15, son of Mr. B. F. Shaw, and Ben Giddens, another boy about the same age left their homes to go to the swamp nearby to gather huckleberries. The dogs that followed the boys treed a rabbit in the swamps, which is a bad place and the boys decided to go in the swamp and get the rabbit, when to their great surprise they found themselves lost. The night was a dark and stormy one and the trees and limbs were falling in every direction. The boy’s parents became alarmed by the boys failing to show up and they decided to go in search of them. Messrs. B. F. Shaw and two sons, F. M. Shaw, Bobbie Taylor, John Shaw, W. B. Parrish, Frank Allen, J. S. Shaw, Brodie and Bruner Shaw, all went in search of the missing boys, some going in every direction. The dogs that accompanied the boys did not come home, which brought great relief to the boy’s parents who realized that if the boys were either drowned or killed the dogs would have returned home. The boys managed to find their way out of the swamps and got back to their homes about 11 o’clock, completely tired out.

Fortunately, on this day everyone returned safely to their homes. Both Frank Shaw and Ben Giddens would later call Ray City home. Frank Shaw, like many of the Shaw family children, attended school at King’s Chapel.